celebrating old friends

Yesterday I got the privilege to attend my friend Serenity's baby shower. Sere and I have been friends since we were four years old.  I am so excited for her and her growing family and it was so fun to be there to celebrate them! 

Games while eating good food while Sere opened baby gifts.

 They don't know the gender of the baby.  What a fun surprise for the whole family!

 Sere looked amazing.  She is due in 1 week.  I can;t wait to meet that little bundle!

It was such a special celebration!

I love you Sere and I can't wait to meet the baby!

learning

Ryder and I recently had some fun with some alphabet cards that I had gotten.   We do a few letters at a time, each day.  On this particular day, we did letters a-g.  We looked at the cards, on the back, there is information on that particular animal that we read out loud, then we got out our blocks and matched them to the cards.  We had a lot of fun and we didn't spend more than half an hour. 

It's so sweet to see him proud of himself for getting a letter correctly, and it is so wonderful to see his little mind learn and take in new things.  It really is such a great feeling as his mom!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In keeping it real, recently, after he was reprimanded for doing something he was told multiple times not to do, he told me he didn't like me and he wished I would go to work and that his dad would be with him.  To be honest, it stung, but it was resolved with love and it ended with hugs, kisses and I love you's.  Oh the joys of motherhood...  It allows me to always be learning too♥.

time to create

There has been quite a bit of this happening at our house recently:

Of course little miss had to get in on it too:

Whether it is play dough, painting, building with legos, or coloring, we have been having lots of fun carving out time for our little people to get to have some create time.  Amidst the frustrations that can come with parenthood, I love that I get to  watch them enjoy things like this and that it enables us to have little moments of calm.

creating: my first "IKEA hack" project

Ok, maybe this isn't a true hack.
On Pinterest, I have been seeing so many creative people taking Ikea furniture and doing some pretty fun stuff with it.  I thought I would give it a try.  My sister and I went a few weeks ago and I found this piece:  the Helmer drawer. It's a metal cabinet painted white, with shiny chrome handles.

 I wanted to put it next to my desk for craft and kid supplies, but next to out really rustic desk, it looked too modern.  I used 60 grit sandpaper and roughed up all the edges to expose the metal underneath.

I painted the handles yellow to match all the yellow accessories on my desk:

It comes with wheels but I decided to save them and leave them off for now.  I think it will be safer with how much Eden loves to climb everything.♥

So here is the finished product:

 I have been having so much fun organizing our craft/learning games.  I haven't put labels on any of the tabs, but I know they will be really easy to change out as needed.

The best part is that it has wheels so I can roll it over to our table when we are working on specific projects when the kids get a little older.

I'll be honest, I was getting a little emotional thinking of my little people being in school and working on school projects...

Where does the time go?

it's getting pretty hot over here...

Last week we harvested lots of peppers from our garden.  It was one of our jobs while Kit was gone.  It was a blast! We had to where gloves since some of the pepper types can be so irritating if their oils get from your hands to your eyes.

 All this brought to you by Kit's green thumb.♥

Salsa, here we come!

weekend recap: He's home!

He got home SUPER late last night, but we are so happy to have him back safe and sound with us!

I think they had a really fun time!

So while he was doing this:

we were doing this:
Enjoying some time around Fullerton...

 

 

...before heading to be with family:
(It's too bad they don't like each other...)

 

Why take a bath alone when you could take one with your cousins!

 we had a movie night and watched "Epic",

Ryder slept had a sleep over with his cousins and had SO much fun! 

 Saturday morning, Redlands hosted the Beautiful Run 5K fun run in support of Beautiful Gate, in Lesotho, Africa: a childcare center where abandoned and orphaned children are restored to health and eventually new families.  Proceeds of the run went to provide food and supplies for the center.

Ryder did it with our family, while I was home with a sleeping Eden:

Then we got to go to the YMCA and watch my nephew Xander beat an undefeated team in over time and then get MVP for the game.

 The girls went out to lunch, no kiddos, and had some wonderful, uninteruppted talk time.
It was wonderful!

 Then we spent some time in the pool.

 It was really special to get to be with our family!

I won't lie, Eden had a really hard time sleeping due to teething and that made the trip unusually harder for us all, but I would say we were able to rally and have lots of fun and make some special memories in the middle of being tired.  I am so thankful for our family!

We had a great time and loved that we were able to be with people we love while our Kit was away♥.  It is wonderful to all be together again...